Faith in McCain

Gallup has new poll data out showing that “religious intensity predicts support for McCain.” Jews are no exception – except that they are.

Only 39% of U.S. Jews report that religion is important in their daily lives, well below the overall national average. Among this smaller group of religious Jews, however, Obama and McCain break even, 45% to 45%. This compares to Obama’s 68% to 26% lead among the majority of Jews for whom religion is not important.

So, yes, like in many other faith groups, Jews who value religion are more likely to back McCain than Jews who don’t. In fact, the gap between religious and non-religious is widest within the Jewish community (Obama won the latter group 68 percent to 26 percent).

At the same time, despite that wide gap, Obama does better with Jews who say religion is important (45%) than he does with white Catholics (37 percent) and white Protestants (27 percent) in that same category.